Bronzeville Real Estate Analysis

In this post, I want to talk about two of my favorite topics:
data analysis and real estate. When we analyze real estate data, we can get a feel for the current market trends. This gives us insight into the current economic environment. This would be very useful information if you were thinking about buying or selling real estate.

It might also be useful information if you were thinking about opening a business. A strong real estate market is a key indicator that the overall economy is doing well. We find that when the real estate market is doing well, customer sentiment is generally high.

And as we all know (thanks to the recession), the converse is also true.
When the real estate market is suffering, customer sentiment usually plunges.

To really benefit from real estate analysis, you need to look at data on the neighborhood level. We have all heard, that in real estate, location is everything. This is very true. Real estate prices can vary
wildly from neighborhood to neighborhood.

So for this analysis, I decided to focus on Bronzeville Chicago.
Bronzeville Chicago has a lot going for it. There are many great neighborhood amenities including restaurants, parks, the lake, etc.

I was curious if the Bronzeville market conditions were improving or declining.
So I decided to analyze all condo sales dating back to 2007.
This information was extracted from the MRED MLS system.

The graph shown below shows the average selling prices by year.

bronzeville_real_estate_average_sales

We see that the average selling price hit a bottom around 2011. Since 2011, prices have been steadily increasing.
That is a good sign. Rising prices equates to rising demand.
We also see that prices have fallen significantly since 2007.

The pie charts shown below examine the ratio of traditional sales to distressed sales. We can see that foreclosures still make up half of the market in Bronzeville.